About

I’m passing along a collection of excerpts from my personal and therapy journals to whomever desires to read them. I’m sharing my story so that those of you who are on a similar journey can know that you aren’t the only one – and so you can know that there is a way through. It is my intention to tell my story with both authenticity and dignity.

The title of my blog comes from a phrase I penned in the Fall of 2007:

“I feel like I am walking through a thick forest and I don’t know where I’m heading, I only know to follow the compass. I believe someday I will come out of the trees and into a clearing. I believe that, when I enter the clearing, I will finally know my primary life’s calling. Until then, I have to walk in faith.”

If you would like read a synopsis of the story (an alternative to reading all of the posts – of which there are currently 900+), click here: The condensed version of my story

Or, if you want to pick and choose which posts to read, you can browse thearchives pages anytime.

And, you may contact me via email: magnalady1@aol.com(please put “Coming Out of the Trees” in the subject line so I know it’s not spam)

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Here is my Bio
Screen name: Marie
Age: Mid 40’s
Single – married once for 10 weeks about 15 years ago
No kids
Live in a smaller town in northern Colorado, USA
Live in modest but comfortable/cozy diggs
Drive an old but reliable car
Earn my living teaching piano lessons
Got a modest education (AA degree from a little Christian school)
Grew up in a small town (farmer’s daughter)
Came from a very conservative/religious family
Dad died when I was 23, Mom lives nearby
I’m the baby of four siblings, we are scattered all over the country
Our family members all get along with each other
Universalistic in my spiritual beliefs
Liberal in my political views
Love to read — mostly non-fiction (random, off-the-wall topics)

Me as a kid

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Here are the people who regularly show up in my blog

Mark – my first therapist

Dr. Barb – my second therapist

Edward – my third (and current) therapist

Melodie – my very best friend of 20+ years (college roommate)

Susan & Erik – my current housemates

James, Cindy and Sara – the cop dad, paramedic mom and their daughter, the dad and daughter are my piano students

Jeff – my student, the psychiatrist

Matt – the 9-year-old savant/autistic neighbor to whom I teach piano

Jerry (also called “X”) – the guy I believe molested me (the music director of my childhood church)

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Here is the story behind the photo in the header

The photo in the header was generously provided by Jim Dollar through creative commons licensing. I encourage you to check out the rest of his photos on flickr.

The photo was taken October 3rd, 2009 and it is of Pyramid Mountain in Alberta, Canada (Jasper National Park). Although this peak is located about 1,000 miles (1,600km) to the north/north-west of where I live, it belongs to the same mountain range (Rocky Mountains) that I can see from my town. In fact, the photo looks as if it was taken in our “neck of the woods” — the trees are the same, the dramatic rawness of the peaks are the same, the clear mountain streams are the same . . . so, I figured the photo was a great fit for my blog’s header. Thank you, Jim!

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Here are the sources of the quotes displayed in the yellow boxes
“Instructions for Life” by the Dalai LamaApples of Gold by Jo PettyExcuses Begone! by Dr. Wayne W. DyerThe Secret by Rhonda ByrneYou Can Be Happy No Matter What by Richard Carlson, Ph.D.The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak ChopraFor the Love of God by Benjamin Shield and Richard CarlsonAsk . . . by John L. MasonSharing Hearts: Little Chats for a Sweet Life by Dee AppelWhat My Cat Has Taught Me About Life by Niki Anderson

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Responses

Hi Marie, I’m sorry I haven’t been over yet to leave comments. But I will! Your blog is now in my RSS reader :)

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Gretchen Paules and I am the Administrative Director for a newly formed nonprofit called the Let Go…Let Peace Come In Foundation. Our mission at LGLPCI is to help heal and support adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse worldwide. We are actively seeking adult survivors who would be willing to post their childhood photo & caption, their story, or their creative expressions to our website http://www.letgoletpeacecomein.org. By uniting survivors from around the globe we hope to provide a stronger and more powerful voice to those survivors who have not yet found the courage to speak out or have been cast aside with disbelief. Please consider posting to our website. If you have any questions please feel free to e-mail me directly at this e-mail address. Together we can; together we should; together we NEED to stand up and be counted.

Thank you for sharing this information . . . I have been looking over your website and I can see how valuable it is for this community. I’ll leave this information here so others can read it, and I’ll see what I can do in the near future to bring attention to your organization.

Hello Marie!
I just wanted to reach out and say hello and thank you for linking to my site! (Blogs about Wholeness) I love the transparency of your writing and your blog period. Some of my best therapy has come from sharing myself through my writing. Thank you for providing such a valuable resource!

As a fellow survivor of domestic violence and child abuse (I was repeatedly raped by a deacon of a church), I’d like to commend you on the good work you’re doing to lead victims of abuse on a path to recovery and help them find their purpose in life. Like you, I’m a survivor and started my recovery through journaling, which led to my published book titled ‘And Yet, You Still Chose Me’, my redemptive, true-life journey of child abuse.

My novel is now being adapted to the silver screen. Like the novel, the film is being produced for 1 reason – to help victims of child abuse walk a path of deliverance from their past. But, the film will do even more. It will show the impact of abuse on the entire family unit. It will also send a message to pedophiles, bringing awareness to the havoc that their perverted acts cause innocent children, both boys and girls, and society as a whole.

As you can imagine, it’s been difficult to find our market because so many of the abused are still victims, still suffering in silence, never to have appropriately dealt with this atrocity, due to no fault of their own. It’s time out for that. It’s time for them to be liberated. And, it’s by survivors like you and me, partnering to help them, that they can begin their recovery. I’ve chosen to make a difference through the arts with my novel and this film titled ‘Picture Me Blue No More’, due in theaters in late 2012.

We are currently raising seed money to start camera roll and to demonstrate to our prospective investors that there is a market for this film. Donations have been slow and we’re running out of time. Can you help me by blogging about this film, about this movement? We need to get the word out and this is not a message that mainstream media has embraced. But, we know how timely this story is. Don’t we?

About the post dates

For each post, there is a significant lag in time between the date the journal entry was written (shown in the heading of the post) and the date the post was published to the blog.

The time lag allows me the opportunity to alter names and other identifying data for privacy purposes, check for grammar and spelling errors, break longer passages into smaller parts, and add the tags, categories, photos, quotes and url links.

It also provides a buffer against the natural “ebb and flow” in the volume of therapeutic writing I produce. After all, I do have a life outside of therapy, LOL.

In fact, there will likely be times when I don't publish anything for weeks . . . that would be because I am preoccupied with events currently occurring in my life. Of course, participating fully in my current life takes precedence over documenting my history.

However, it is my intention to continue documenting my journey even though I may run significantly behind in publishing those journal entries to my blog. I'll publish entries when I can!

On a side note, I write a lot about other people. Please know that I almost always change names, and I often change other characteristics such as gender and age in order to protect the privacy of those people.

Thank you so much for stopping by to check out my blog!

- Marie---------

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